Positive perceptions of Downtown Detroit on the rise, survey indicates

Positive perceptions of Downtown Detroit are on the rise, according to an annual survey of nearly 4,000 city and suburban residents, most of whom work downtown.

The survey gathered overall impressions of Downtown Detroit and perceptions of safety, lighting, cleanliness, parking, walking, biking and public transportation.

The annual Perceptions Survey is conducted by the Downtown Detroit Partnership, the Downtown Detroit Business Improvement Zone and the Hudson-Webber Foundation.

Overall perceptions of the city went from 84 percent positive in last year's survey to 91 percent in the latest.

"Clean came up about 10 percentage points but the safety piece we continued to wrestle with," said Eric Larson, CEO of Downtown Detroit Partnership. "There are certain areas we continue to make strides in and there are other areas that we recognized there were additional efforts that were necessary."

Nearly 60 percent of the survey respondents work in Downtown Detroit, 30 percent live within the city of Detroit and 70 percent live outside the city.

"In the suburbs, the transit debate doesn't resonate as much as an urban environment," said Larson. "We've looked at where our major employment nodes are in the suburbs and how people are getting to and from those jobs."

Scenery and architecture is a quality that lures many visitors to the city, according to the survey results.

Larson said the Detroit River Walk was ranked sixth in the world in a different survey for outdoor scenery in cities, adding that an estimated 1 million people visit the River Walk each year, and 1 million swing by Campus Martius Park.

About half of respondents felt Detroit's parking system is easy to use, convenient, safe and easy to locate.

"We won't always be the darling of the media and the world, but right now, we are," he said. "A lot of people will look back at this time in the city of Detroit and try and understand what we did right and what we did wrong, what as a nation can we learn from it and how we really convert a rustbelt city into a much more attractive powerhouse."

Detroit is also becoming an innovation hub for entrepreneurs, which the Downtown Detroit Partnership is looking to expand upon.

"People are curious. Detroit has had the benefit of being the underdog, and people are curious to see how far we've come," Larson said.

A previous survey of 200 graduate students from the University of North Carolina yielded mostly negative perceptions of Detroit, including descriptions of the city as unsafe and dirty, Larson said.

But then the participants then spent a week in the city.

"After spending a week here, the results were the exact opposite, they found it incredibly inviting and incredibly engaging," Larson said. "That all lends out to the outside perspective and interest to what we have going on here."